It has been painfully obvious for quite some time that things were going to turn out this way:

Senator Mitch McConnell returned to the Senate on Monday for the first time in more than three months, ending an absence that had fueled questions about his medical condition and ability to continue serving after a health incident at his home in mid-June.

Mr. McConnell, the 84-year-old Kentucky Republican and former party leader, arrived in a wheelchair for the Senate’s evening vote on a federal appeals court nominee, the first time he had been seen there since he last cast a floor vote on June 11.

“My recovery has been a long and often frustrating process, and the lingering effects of childhood polio haven’t made it any easier,” Mr. McConnell said in a statement released by his office announcing his return.

“I’m still not quite back to 100 percent,” he added, saying that he had told party leaders “that, as I continue with physical therapy on the advice of my doctors, I will do my best to be present for tough votes when our conference needs me.”

Senator McConnell’s illness was, you may recall, an occasion for the unleashing of a ceaseless torrent of utter stupidity from the left side of the internet. Much of this stupidity found its focus in the person of Governor Andy Beshear, who “WASN’T DOING ANYTHING” and “JUST DECIDED NOT TO FIGHT,” and so on and so forth. To those of us with an elementary understanding of how to read the Kentucky constitution and the US constitution, all of this was obvious nonsense; there was nothing that could be done without a body and there was no real reason to believe that McConnell had actually passed to his eternal reward. But of course this did not slow the idiots, the grifters, and the conspiracy theorists from having their moment. The most likely outcome was always that Mitch was still alive and that he would return to the Senate floor.

For the future? It is never a good idea to indulge the idiots, the grifters, and the conspiracy theorists. They invariably make all of us stupider.

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